I have been buying SACDs since 2001 and every time I listen to one I have a wide smile. There is no reason why I will ever stop buying more SACDs as long as they exist and I am alive.
Totally agree, brother! I just recently inherited the components to upgrade my system, and I've been buying up SACDs voraciously, occasionally regretting that I have missed so many great buys in the last 20 years. But, I've got my original bunch from that first wave, and will never get rid of them.
@@gjohnleigh Same here. I have a LINN GENKI CD player that I bought back in 2002 - still going strong. It has an HDCD chip and wow do those discs shine! I've been buying up as many SACD discs over recent times and am just a few short of 500. Both formats offer a far superior listening experience. They should've become the baseline for audio quality but sadly the vast majority listen to music on white ear buds on their I-pod and now smart phone. It's a real travesty! Streaming is convenient and great value but doesn't replace the strong bond of owning a hard copy of a disc- cd or vinyl- being able to interact with it physically cannot be replaced!
@@knockshinnoch1950My experience is that usually the SACD recording and mastering are better than others. But if you have and hybrid SACD and you play it as SACD and as CD... It's really hard to me to find differences, same I could say about HDCD. It makes me believe that the real difference is the disc recording and mastering. Other completely different thing is a multi channel SACD... This is clearly a different experience. But for stereo playing comparing same recording and mastering versions and playing in with the same gear... very little difference, at least for my ears.
Been buying cd's since the 80's. Lately got around to investing in some nice mid to high end speakers and a similar amp to match. Been curious about SACD for about 20 years but never got around to getting into it. I have had a couple of SACD'S in my collection for some time but never listened to them as SACD before, as I always intended to make a 5.1 set up using my home cinema amp but never did it. So last night, I listened to SACD for first time, in two channel stereo, using a 10 year old Sony DVD player that is SACD capable and has analogue outs. The sound was remarkably good with ordinary cd's but with SACD, there was definitely a difference in sound quality, plusher is how I would describe it. The SACD's were Dark side of the moon and Tommy.
I bought a Marantz SA10 SACD player a few months back and I love it! The sound quality is truly exceptional. SACD really should've become the industry standard. Listening to music is a completely different experience- sound excellence. People who say they can't hear any difference really need to get their hearing checked out as a matter of urgency.
I brough a dcd600ne 5 yrs ago.I though the denon cd player is impressive until I brough a used denon dcd 1600ne .and WOW! it was incredible.! Fantastic ! The sound quality far better than cd music player.
A few week ago I bought a new Marantz SACD KI Signature, so happy with it! Maybe not perfect but works great for me, I feel like 18 again playing my old records like I used to. And my son loves it too! 💿🔊🎶😊👍
@@lukeshatterhand1969 Hey. How's the dac on the sa ki ruby and which are your final impressions about the amp. Did you compared to other amps of the price category? Does the ruby combo worth buying? Thanks
I started going down this path of true audio nirvana until one day I finally realized that there was no happy ending, and that I was making it that way. Nothing, including our audio reproduction systems will ever be perfect. Unreal expectations create unreachable goals, and no amount of money will ever change that. When I finally admitted that to myself, I stopped chasing my tail (and wasting my money) and concentrated on building a system that would satisfy me most of the time. I am happy with the system I have now, and no longer feel the need to look for the next great thing that everyone says is better.
Thank you for putting into words the mentality that I've adopted. I've bought lots of vintage equipment with no satisfaction being derived from adding more devices. So I am content with the old Bose system my roommate gave me even though everyone hates that brand. My tinnitus will never allow me to enjoy music as I once did, so there's no point in trying to reach perfection when my hearing is far from that.
@@ignazs.5816 Everyone hates Bose (atleast these days) cause its premium on the outside but on the inside where it matters its pure shit. And the big problem is with everything there is no perfection. Every your hardware gets released with companys claiming thats even more realistiv sound blablabla often they just change the case ad a few features that nobody needs and thats it.
100% agree with your comment. It’s a terrible place to be - always questioning the sound quality of your music and sound system. Someone in the comments section of a hifi site categorically states their CD player sounds better than the one you own, so it puts a seed of doubt into your mind. It’s the path to perpetual unhappiness! Make peace with what you have (it’s probably better than what 99% of people own) and enjoy the music.
A big thank you for this very informative video. I´ve recently bought myself a High End SACD-player and now I know why the music sounds a lot better on SACD:s than on CD:s. Thanks again!
I got a used OPPO blu-ray player (BRP-105) about a year ago and have been very happy with it. It plays most any kind of CD sized disk (CD, SACD, Blu-ray, etc.). It includes the transport, a DAC and has a volume adjustment so you can connect it directly to your power amp. There is also a newer version - BRP-205. OPPO is no longer making Blu-ray players so you would need to look in the used market. I got mine through Amazon. When I was shopping prices were between 1 and 3K. Not bad for a quality transport and DAC.
Depending on your budget get a sacd player/dac like Yamaha CD-S2100 or CD-S3000 and you can hook them up straight to your pc. Or get the new Technics SL-G700 sacd/streamer. Yes, definitely worth getting one especially if you still use physical media.
Looking at solutions for playing DSD files vs the familiarity of a SACD player as a music making device makes me lean toward buying a player. Pop in the disk and play. All the computer stuff needed to do the DSD file handling (and even then it might be by way of PCM conversion) takes the fun out of it.
What ideally you need is a quality universal player. Unfortunately they are becoming quite rare. I was lucky a few months back at picking up a Primare BD 32 mk2. This is an awesome bit of kit, based on the Oppo 105 and now my DVD, DVDA, SACD, CD, Blu-ray collection are on par, sound quality wise, with my vinyl front-end. And in some instances, even better.
And the only way to output SACD Stream is in analog format unless your receiving DAC decodes DSD. So even using your SACD transport it’s most useful output is analog and in case of hybrid multichannel SACD discs presents a requirement for multichannel analog outputs ideally XLR too.
As an unrepentant physical media kind of guy and government certified old dude with a fairly large library of chrome donuts and even a significant stable of unicorns (as the audio-company-that-must-not-be-named likes to refer to them) collected over the decades, I would say yes, get a deck. ["Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na . . ."] If you can afford a big bucks CD/SACD deck, good for you. Enjoy! However, there is still a fair amount of kit affordable by mere mortals, such as myself, out there that can take you 95% (or more) of the way to the state of the art. So it's not a Lamborrari, you can still have a lot of fun in a Camstang.
@@rreiss60 I have an Arcam DV135 not quite universal player (stereo only, no Blu-ray) back from when they still manufactured all their kit in England. It originally listed for $1500, but I got it from a brick-and-mortar stereo specialist (support your locals) for a new old stock clearance price of $800 when Arcam made a total revamp of their product line. Even that was a bit of a splurge, but I'd had my eye/ear on this deck for quite a while and it was too good of a deal to pass up.
Paul, Why is the output quality of the digital source relevant (we look for extra low Jitter in the source, as you explained, right?), when the downstream DAC is anyway re-clocking the digital signal before it gets converted into an analog signal? Thanks for the clarification!
I like how "single layer" SACD's have a large capacity for music. I have one that has 4 hours/15 minutes playing time. Also "5.1" surround on my BD player is great as well.
Even my used $40 Pioneer SACD player sounds good so hell yes the high end stuff will blow minds...and wallets... Just have to make sure you get the right setup to go with it.
Since some time, all DACs have asynchronous USB. It means that it's the DAC which masters the transfer rate from the computer, and the same way that it explained here, the DAC has a buffer, and uses this buffer with its own clock to build the final digital data at the proper speed. Thus, unless there's a big tech issue, from the hard-drive till the DAC input, we don't really care because it's fast enough to keep the buffer feeding pace.
SACD is twenty year old technology based on DSD64 when the majority of labels recording today use DSD256 (yes it does make sense) with even DSD512 remodulated files available and good quality DAC's able to handle this bit rate. SACD's are played by many folks not realising the DSD is being converted to PCM, defeating the object of the format - it's always been the problem of the Sony copyright to be able to stream the DSD material out to an external DAC. I think universal players are brilliant because of multi-channel DAC capability and of course video. I use an old Cambridge CXU universal blu-ray player but when it comes to SACD the benefit is just the 5.1as it converts DSD to PCM. How about a novel idea, a device that stores your files on a solid state drive not a spinning hard disc, has a simple GUI for you to find what you want and a direct internal hardwire connection to the DAC with a small amplifier to power headphones or line-level out to a main system...oh wait a minute Cowon, Astell & Kern, Fiio etc already do that and they can in some cases handle DSD512!
I just built a small form factor pc to do media duty with a pcie4.0 nvme drive which is ludicrously quick at getting data. Connects directly to the DAC via ASIO instead of being resampled and remixed by the operating system's sound controls. Its about the size of a game console, and I can even use it like one if I want.
What is so novel about replacing a cheap and large HDD with a small and expensive SDD, Seeing how streaming is absolutely not dependent of the speed of either? Basically every large HDD even comes with a 64 or even 128 MB cache, so with the low rate of data to be delivered, an SDD does not make any sense. SDDs also break. I have probably lost as many SDDs as HDDs.
Reading the comments makes me wonder how a normal person who just wants to hear music sound its best might ever be able to make heads or tails of any of this. Maybe we are all a bit crazy, said he, who not only has bought back up sacd players but also backup hdcd players to try to wring the most sound he can for the price point. I got another 30 years of listening and I want it to be good, but I am not in the high end league though I do enjoy the videos. But at a certain point even I am smh.
I have a Sony UHD blueray and Yamaha Blueray player both play SACD connected to my Yamaha receiver using HDMI and it uses Direct DSD works great and can get multi ch SACD. Also have a DAC connected to seperate amp powering my own built speakers and it all sounds great. Most of my files are DSD over network to either Dac or one of the bluerays. But I can tell you SACD esp Multi Ch or DSD256 + needs A LOT of bandwidth that a lot of networks cant provide esp wifi. I had to store them on NVME SSD's inside my NAS (Network attached storage) for them to play cleanly with out jitter or breakup etc. Have a Old Philips SACD 6ch sound system with glass speakers that all have ribon tweeters that system got me into SACD adiction.
Paul continues to refer to harddrive “jitter” and as he is not a data storage and network expert that is an understandable misunderstanding. I can only speak for what I use and I’m sure there are other constructions but the infrastructure is mostly the same everywhere. Data is stored lets say randomly across the surface of a rotating disk hard drive. A file can be in many different places. When the file is requested to be “played” from the drive the on board computer gathers the blocks of data and moves them into one or sometimes two buffer memory blocks. Bigger drives have bigger buffer memories. All of them way way bigger then any SACD file. Remember these things have video files in mind. At some point the data stored in the buffer memory is sent on its way over the network to lets say a Player that also has a buffer memory. Again probably designed for video and way way bigger then any Audio file of any format. Then the Player does its thing from there. The file is sent in (BIG) packets, not streamed. In my case my audio and video files are stored on a Network Accessible Storage (NAS) device that contains four Seagate Ironwolf 4TB drives specifically designed for a NAS. They are in what is called a RAID-5 and they all have bodaciously large buffers as does the NAS itself. The NAS features a DLNA Server and is connected to a 1GB LAN. So pointing to “jitter” in the harddrive(s) in such a system would, well, not be understanding how it works.
My first dvd player after the PS2 was the Sony DVP-NS500V SACD/DVD Player. It has the analog 5.1 output and of course Sony and dts processing. I had the Sony STR-SE581 with 5.1 input and had 5.1 before most people knew what it was. I was 17
I have a Marantz SACD player. I have a Cambridge transport and their dac magic plus player. Use the transport to play a Cd. Play the same Cd recorded in SACD. Won't play on the transport. Plays on the SACD player. I can't tell much of a difference in sound quality playing both the Cd's on their players. IMHO buy a SACD player. Get a lot of bang for the buck from a SACD player.
Awake2020 got this right. SACD is protected by digital rights management, DRM. You CANNOT get DSD from the digital output of any SACD player. You also cannot rip the DSD from an SACD onto a hard drive. So if you are buying a SACD player, you are also buying the included DAC. I am not up on the current range of SACD players, if you can get one that does the conversion purely in DSD, you might actually have something. You would still be limited to DSD64. My last download from Blue Coast Music was DSD256, 4 times the sample rate of SACD. If you go with a computer, you want a DAC that does not first convert the DSD signal to PCM before decoding.
Some people seem to be really hung up by this digital rights management stuff. I am not one of them. My ears are old and my "get off the merry-go-round", to cite the late, great Sam Tellig (his nom de plume is his birth name Gillette spelled backwards phonetically, clever), level system brings me much joy. Not to say that I don't don't also enjoy reading/YouTubing about it, though. Be happy!
good, very good question. and WHAT is 'high end '?? My $200. Sony Bluray plays SACD and new high tech multi ch. digital audio that is I think called 'better' than SACD..... I don't 'get' the alphabet rating systems, it's in the end digital numbers, one or zero right ? so what is ' high end' IF the player can digest the high rate info ?
Are there multichannel dsd-files available and multichannel dacs available? Or do you need a SACD sending the multichannel data to a AVR via the HDMI which can decode it into the different channels? Are there AVRs that can take a multicahnnel dsd file in on the usb and decode it to the diffrent channels?
@@fretlessfender There's no jitter at this step, during file read, simply because timing doesn't matter. As he explained for their sacd player, in fact in DACs, which are asynchronous, there's a big buffer, to allow data receive from computer at irregular speed, and it's the DAC itself which uses its own clock to rebuild the waveform from the digital data. Regarding that, Paul's explanation is wrong. We just don't care if reading speed of file is irregular, because timing just doesn't matter at that moment.
@@sebsoud I wonder home many of this SACD-is-better-and-the-rest-of-you-are-deaf did proper ABX testing to trully compare the sound and see if they are able to tell the diference. It's all snake oil in the end and nothing sounds better than a regular lossless digital file
EMM Labs makes brilliant SACD players. Amazing reach into the music. You won't hear this kind of SACD/DSD performance on a mid-fi SACD player or DSD dac.
for my dedicated room (have another 2, 1 of which I do use for streaming with a DSjr dac), I keep asking myself the question. shall I just go with a very, very good SACD player -and player only- the likes of Métronome, Esoteric, Technics, Marantz 30, Luxman, Accu etc? As I do not need streaming and don't event want to have a network (wired/wireless) in that rome at all. just a top quality space to play my hundreds of shiny high resolution discs. Or shall I still go the transport-dac route? ahhh options
I think what he was asking is not just the output, but output of what? Does your (and other) SACD players only output PCM over HMDI, DSD over HDMI, or PCM or DSD or analog?
This is a good question and here is why. People have been buying high end SACD players for decades and even now as we speak. However, the latest debate is that you don't need to buy an expensive transport because the sound quality is really almost only dependent on the DAC. Only until recently I thought there was no way you could decode SACD on an external high end DAC. Well, apparently you can and that is by using the HDMI out of your SACD transport to connect to a HDMI Extractor device that you can get from Amazon and in turn connect it to the I2S input of your high end external DAC. As a matter of fact, you can't even use a high end SACD player even if you wanted to because no high end SACD players have HDMI out. As it turns out, it is only available on the much cheaper universal disc players like the already extinct Oppo player to now the Magnetar universal player plus other universal player brands.
@@dannytse8767 True, but why would you? Assuming a high end external DAC will make all the difference in sound quality, plus if you have already been using one for your CDs, of course the natural thing to do is to use your SACDs on it as well. Having said that, many people are still buying Esoteric SACD/CD hybrid players and the likes though, well at least in Asia. I find a lot of audiophiles in Asia are still very much heavy CD/SACD users as opposed to streaming. Just my perception. So, I am not sure whether this HDMI Extractor device has caught on yet? I for one am still using my SACD player and its internal DAC for SACDs. I have to ask around and see what other people think. But, if I had to guess, this probably only applies to the older audiophiles as the younger folks say in their 20's and 30's after the closing down of pretty much all large CD shop chains in the 2010's like the HMVs of the world must have fully migrated over to streaming by now. Personally, I belong to the older group and am still actively buying CDs and SACDs online in sizable quantities every month.
e james yes. Some artists think that is ideal. Because they’re getting ripped off more, and for longer by the record companies. It’s an unpopular opinion, but you can’t say it doesn’t exist. SOME artists would prefer to forgo the industry and give their fans a way to cherish their music forever.
@e james I fail to see what this has to do with SACD superceding cd's. Are you saying that artists want it to be exclusive? If so, they succeeded to a point it's almost non-existent. Also I believe Sony is the one making it troublesome for other companies to use SACD's due to licensing. So I fail to see how this benefits the music creators.
But what about DVD audio that was the best it has the best sample rate. It has support for high linear PCM and DSD plus Lossless files MLP Meridian Lossless packages, the same people who brought mqa I think they are interchangeable but don't hold me to that an mqa file could be read by the DVD player
@@charlescalkins4732 you need a special player to get the benefits of a DVD plus A discs,what you can have the sampling rate at 192khz 24 bit they are the best format for mastering off tape you can get. but they're not around much these days they say you can't tell the difference between the master tape and the DVD+A disc should be able to find second-hand like meridian models on the internet and discs are available still and some new releases
I watched this twice , and I don’t know if Paul is recommending one or not , I understand that there are a lot of factors particularly when using a computer, so using a dedicated SACD player certainly takes out a lot of variables to the equation. I’d also add , what is a high end player ? I use an Oppo and it sounds better than my MAC Mini , I know that it’s not that simple but that’s kinda of the point , the sacd player makes it simpler
@@dempsey3 I don't know I didn't watch it I got distracted lol check it again later maybe , but maybe Paul would like to introject if hes about, I wasn't talking about sacd!
Makes a difference as long as CD/ROM is SACD, a plain CD sounds no different in these machines. My problem is why these SACD go for so much $$$$$$$$$$$$$$. One blood sucker wanted $500.00 for "Yes" Close to the edge. Granted it was a limited edition...................but, not for me @ 500.
The reason is because the title you seek is considered "out of print". If you would have got into SACD early on, you could've picked up Michael Jackson's "Thriller" on SACD for under $20 at your local Best Buy.
an sacd player can be had for 1100 to 1200 bucks or so from denon as well as arcam.also,pioneer make a universal player for about 900.00 that will also play blu ray audio only and dvd audio discs.
I generally find that PC Audio cards cannot produce good audio as good as a dedicated HiFi. I would go the route of something like the Marantz Network Audio Player that can play wav files ripped from CD & can play high res 24Bit files from a USB stick.
Question. I listen to music at my desktop MAC via iTunes. I don't stream. I invested in $$$ headphones, and all of my music is on WAV files in my iTunes Library, the best my Mac offers. But to import a physical CD or SACD (or play a DVD) on my Mac, I need an outboard disk drive, which is, I think, nothing more than an optical drive in a case. A tray slides out, you pop in the CD (or DVD), it shows up on your screen, you import it into iTunes, press Play. Computer stores offer very few choices. So with this setup, is there any way I can upgrade my listening experience? Does my Mac even recognize SACD? Could I replace this standard $99 all-purpose disc drive with anything better? A sort of transport made for people listening on their computers?
I've never actually seen an SACD, but then I never saw much in the way of minidisc or DCC in stores either. I'm sure why it failed, was nasty DRM, and a format war.
As a computer is a general purpose device that does other things apart from playing music a significant factor? When I play music on a computer it will decide to start indexing some files or installing an update, then the fan kicks in and this has an impact on what I hear. This is not a problem with my SACD player because it only plays music and nothing else.
Shortly no! Regarding DAC and a sound signature that it bares it really depends on would you use it as a final one or audit it further. So for instance AKM sounds polite and warm (mostly) and if that's it & you intend to use it just like that it's a great choice but if you want to future use preamp stage or tube pre amp or amp ESS which is sharp sounding & bright becomes a much better option. Besides it's much easier to regulate sharpness (roll of filter) & highs that sometimes that's warm (as it easily can destroy lower mids). The actual implementation (how good it is) is more important than what DAC chip is inside as if pore implemented it simple can't sound good. This is where actual measurements jump in. In certain amount that also dictates a price but not distinctively, I know great mid range and even some entry lv products that are so good designed that they run circles around much more pricier products of famous brands. The main part is easy access ability and modularity of equipment & you always buy it as separate components not something highly integrated all in one. So for instance you switch couple of OP amp chips on pre amp/headphone amp on well designed one to find out which one you like the most or couple of lamps & cetera & cetera. I hope this is undesirable.
There is one important point that you overlooked: a considerable number of SACDs are mastered as PCM (generally 24-bit, 96kHz) so if they become available as file downloads, those will be PCM files not DSD.
@@fredjones554 I find that NativeDSD Music is - apart from the Octave Records DSD files - the only source of true DSD file downloads and superb they are. (You usually have a choice of resolution; i.e. DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 etc). I concede that there may be other sources I am not aware of and I would be interested in finding out about others.
If you're using the HDMI output on the Sony to send the DSD bitstream to the Marantz, then the Marantz is conventing the DSD bitstream to PCM first, before final conversion to analog.
What you need to do is buy a very inexpensive Sony Blu Ray player that can output DSD via HDMI, and then spend $4000 on a DAC that can decode DSD and has HDMI inputs. The DAC will be useful for other things too.
Hmm, can SACD DSD information be digitally streamed from an SACD player to an external DAC such that the DAC is converting the DSD directly? I thought only the CD portion of a dual-layer SACD can be streamed via digital outputs. In other words, an SACD player can only convert DSD internally and directly output via analog ports on the player itself and not out digital outputs.
Carefully listen to the question again. "I know an SACD player connected to a really good DAC will outperform DSD file playback". His statement implies he is outputting DSD from his SACD player to an external DAC. Does the Sony spec for SACD allow it? Isn't that the reason there are no SACD drives for a computer?
Several manufacturers offer transports that send digital DSD to a separate DAC. The only hitch is that both transport and DAC must be from the same manufacturer. PS Audio used to do that and apparently they will have a new transport that will do it again. Esoteric and dcs also have them, and I'm sure there are others. Personally though, it seems that a single player in one box would have the benefit of shorter signal paths and no interconnect cables, and there's no reason it can't have a fabulous built in DAC.
@@ychilds99 There are various proprietary systems that allow transfer of DSD from a transport to an external DAC, but they are not inter-compatable as far as I know. Also, they tend to be very expensive. Some of the companies that do this are EMM Labs, dCS, MSB, MacIntosh, and (of course) PS Audio.
I have an OPPO BDP -95. I'm concerned that when it eventually dies , there will be few SACD players on the market , so I am looking to buying something comparable now. Any ideas?
The problem of PC or any computer based media streaming is because it is computer that generates media stream (both video and audio). Computer is build to get correct and stable out come. But not just in time and surly not first time right. And this is the problem when we use computer or microprocessor to play back digital music. Frankly all part of computer is build with the same base thinking even down to network protocol and routing. They are aim to get correct out come at the end but not in time. Paul, that was why audio grade Network cable, and router sound better. Because good cable pass most data first time right and special router does not route data in random but route it in orderly fashion with precision clock. That is why INNUOS's head designer said at the end everything matters with music server design. Because you nearly need to redo the way whole computer operation in order to get the result you want for music server.
If you buy a good quality SACD why bother wasting more money on seperate DAC as some SACDs allow digital input so you can use it as a transport and/or DAC. You can play SACD/CD and stream hires files to it!
A CD player is way way more prone to data errors due to finger prints and scratches. Data errors will hurt the sound quality. Also a CD player has its own clock and if it outputs data to an external DAC you will have two clocks that will be somewhat out of synch adding potential issues as the DAC needs to try to calibrate itself to what the CD clock does. The CD is pushing data in its own pace. Much better is to use SSD or HD and make the DAC be the only clock master in control ensuring there is no clock syncs issues. This method means data is being pulled from the source using the DAC clock and is possible through USB e.g. via a computer.
Totally agree with you, all decent DAC's reclock the signal anyway. Much more logical starting with files on a SSD rather than reading them off a spinning optical disc!
Anthony Martino How do you know if you have this issue? Data errors on an audio CD are camouflaged by algorithms aiming at you not noticing those errors and the worse errors the more the sound is affected. Bit perfect playback is much more reliable in an SSD or HD.
Also, for durability, an big advantage of files is that they can easily be copied on a backup disk (which, is anyway highly recommended!), so we can ensure that there's really nothing lost during time.
Anthony Martino If you handle your discs well, you hopefully enjoy handling discs. I prefer not bothering with handling discs anymore. I used to be like that. Nowadays I just pick my music from the media player user interface and promptly play it. Check Tidal, for example. The guy who owns the most CDs on the planet is a friend of me. His name is Li Jihui and he is Chinese. His collection is insane covering rooms of walls full of CDs and LPs plus a warehouse of boxes also. I dare not ask him the time spent in finding a particular song. My perhaps equally large collection can fit in my hand and any song is found in less than a second. He also has the world’s largest audiophile equipment collection and several large acoustically optimized listening rooms. It’s an audiophile paradise. He makes his money owning China’s largest knife company.
sebsoud Another reason is space. If you want to have a large collection of music on CD or vinyl, it takes a lot of space and cost a lot of money. The future of music storage is solid state either in the cloud (like Tidal) or in your home on some NAS drive or other drive.
If the digital interconnect included flow control you could do that, but alas it does not. If it's left to the DAC, what happens if your DAC is expecting data faster than the transport supplies it and you run out of buffered data? Conversely, if your transport is supplying data faster than it's being used by the DAC, then how many bytes of extra buffer should the DAC provide to accommodate the mismatch and what happens if that buffer is exceeded? Because there is no way for the DAC to control the flow, the clock needs to be established at the start of the chain and then followed by the destination. It would be simpler if computer or RADAR nerds engineered these transports... in that world I would assume the digital components would operate in a more "packet" oriented context and there would be a seperate cable to distribute a single master clock to all components. Most audiophiles would likely elect to use an atomic clock for their master.
The transport is controlling and providing the master clock so while it might not make sense, that's the way it's been setup for as long as there have been DACs, transports and CD players.
I don't "stream" my music. I guess I'm still old school. (My 25 year old son does, though). Anyway, I'd like to get a new SACD transport, but I don't want to spend mega $$$ on one. Any thoughts would be appreciated. THANKS!
Hello Steve, I feel the same way, I've had my eye on a Sony ubp x800mk2, it is a digital transport that plays sacd, 4k blueray, dvd audio, and most other things for under $300.00. Hope that helps.
right. I have the $ 200. Sony 700 that plays SACD and the new 'high tech' multi ch. movie soundtracks, said to be better than SACD I think. I don't get the alphabet of digital ratings, but if the digital flow of info is twice or 3 times standard CD ( SACD ) that's probably pretty darn good. as is standard CD. it's in the recordings and quality of mastering.
The Dec.2019 and Feb. 2020 issues of The Absolute Sound have reviews of CD/SACD players from Arcam, Marantz, Technics, and Yamaha in the $1200 - $4000 range. Not chump change, but not bat-sierra (keep it family friendly) crazy, either. Not a substitute for personal auditions, of course, but presumably honest opinions from a source with a long established track record. And in the words of Jeremy Clarkson (or was it James May) in Top Gear, "Old school and the better for it." =//=OIdDudesStillRock
I've had a Sony CE595 since new. You can find one in good shape you are golden. They did have some alignment issues but there is a fix for that. Mine never had the issue. Maybe because it's sat on the same shelf since it came out of the box. It even plays good quality normal CD's better then most also.
I would think invest in a good, not expensive sacd player ( that has a good transport and hook it up with an external dac eg: RME adi2 fs, I would think that it would elivate it big time. Another can be seen the Sony xa5400es SACD player moded with the VSE internal Tera Lite clock or the Uber outboard clock, expensive but will blow $5000 cd players away...just saying!
Please keep in mind that flash storage is *temporary.* As flash memory cells scale, the atoms they're made from do not and the result is the stored charge in each cell has been getting smaller and smaller as density increases. Modern SSDs only keep your data in tact by virtue of error detection and correction logic being very good and as they're used, they constantly provide invisible "housekeeping" in the background that periodically rewrites saved data to new locations on the chip to refresh it and even out the number of writes to any given data block. The flash used in server cache drives can start to forget its contents in as little a 3 months without power applied to run that background housekeeping. Consumer units are much better but I would not count on any flash drive for archival storage because it absolutely will forget. Make a copy of your valued data on spinning disks and then copy those to SSDs for the benefits, but don't even think your data is safe on a SSD. (BTW: I used to work in one of the largest SSD factories in the US which got moved to Mexico a couple years ago)
@@timyen75 The DAC is not the only factor. The LASER and the quality of the motor and supporting electronics (not to mention the analogue output stage) all come into play.
No sir I don't. I love physical disc media and lately seem to be good at wearing out mega CD changers. I keep having to buy used ones and crossing my fingers. Just bought another changer (Pioneer PD-F27 this time) and also bought a Marantz SA8004 SACD player (single disc obviously). The SA8004 will satisfy my SACD needs for now and also has digital inputs so I can use it as a DAC. I need the DAC feature so if and when this new mega changer fails I will have files of all my discs on my laptop ready to play through the SA8004 on my home system. That will give me time to sort yet another mega changer. My first mega changer lasted me 22 years but I'm now buying used.
@@07zx14White I have a 100 disc pioneer and a 6 disc multi player. everything seems to work except the laser doesn't want to read the discs. any ideas how what's the problem? where do get your 2nd equipment? hard to come buy here in oz :(
@@realguyozWhat is the model # of the faulty CD player? I constantly check second hand stores, flea markets, vendor malls, goodwill, and ebay. My last two purchases were Ebay though. Ebay is always a gamble but if you put in the study time you can find good deals from honest sellers. Also if you search the model # of your disc player sometimes used working parts will show up.
I am not sure the server is relevant at all. Isn't it that basically every streamer / DAC re-clocks the data as they receive it? I like to think even my rather old low end Marantz streamer does that. I don't believe this is dependent on the server at all because the server cannot account for network performance.
What I hope to accomplish... I slip the Dark Side of the Moon disc into my 'puter I hope my 65 yr old ears will hear 'close' to what my 20 yr old ears heard. As far as I'm concerned, mission accomplished!
No its not..Buy old DVD players.The have very good lasers inside wich work on a much higher frequency than CD players. you wil hear more low frequencies.
No ... my hearing above 10Khz requires 50db minimum signal (and gets worse at higher frequencies) because I am 50years old. It is also proven that at lower frequencies the accuracy matters less. SACD is pointless for people above 40!
@@djknox2 That's a valid argument to make, if the better sound quality is due to the equipment or the better mastering? But I would argue it does not really matter. If it's the mastering effect, then so be it, you are still getting a better reproduction, better fidelity via SACD in most cases, and you need the SACD player to get that better quality, due to greater bandwidth that they are able to reproduce in. This is not any different than individuals who with vinyl look for earlier/ different pressings of albums because they do sound better? And there are many grades of styli that reproduce an album and accentuate the album differently. I really don't think that SACDs are pointless for people over 40. That's a very unscientific generalization. You would have to assume that everyone over 50 can't hear above a certain frequency. I myself am 54 , and I watched a RUclips video where the individual played a cd and a SACD of dire straits and I could definitely hear the difference between the two and it was not subtle either. That's not to say you're going to get that with each SACD but at least in this instance there was a big difference. I am a researcher and believe at every age nuances in the ability of individuals to use their senses to perceive more or less occurs across all ages. I'm not saying that the placebo effect is not real, but that's not to say that we should discount an individuals ability to hear some thing that another individual cannot and call it snake oil because of it.
What about SACD’s multilayered audio. Only a compatible player capable of reading this information can access the detailed separation. So yes they are worth buying, they sound better.
I have been buying SACDs since 2001 and every time I listen to one I have a wide smile. There is no reason why I will ever stop buying more SACDs as long as they exist and I am alive.
People who say there is no difference really should book a hearing test- seriously!
Totally agree, brother! I just recently inherited the components to upgrade my system, and I've been buying up SACDs voraciously, occasionally regretting that I have missed so many great buys in the last 20 years. But, I've got my original bunch from that first wave, and will never get rid of them.
@@gjohnleigh Same here. I have a LINN GENKI CD player that I bought back in 2002 - still going strong. It has an HDCD chip and wow do those discs shine! I've been buying up as many SACD discs over recent times and am just a few short of 500. Both formats offer a far superior listening experience. They should've become the baseline for audio quality but sadly the vast majority listen to music on white ear buds on their I-pod and now smart phone. It's a real travesty! Streaming is convenient and great value but doesn't replace the strong bond of owning a hard copy of a disc- cd or vinyl- being able to interact with it physically cannot be replaced!
@@knockshinnoch1950My experience is that usually the SACD recording and mastering are better than others. But if you have and hybrid SACD and you play it as SACD and as CD... It's really hard to me to find differences, same I could say about HDCD.
It makes me believe that the real difference is the disc recording and mastering.
Other completely different thing is a multi channel SACD... This is clearly a different experience. But for stereo playing comparing same recording and mastering versions and playing in with the same gear... very little difference, at least for my ears.
Been buying cd's since the 80's. Lately got around to investing in some nice mid to high end speakers and a similar amp to match. Been curious about SACD for about 20 years but never got around to getting into it. I have had a couple of SACD'S in my collection for some time but never listened to them as SACD before, as I always intended to make a 5.1 set up using my home cinema amp but never did it. So last night, I listened to SACD for first time, in two channel stereo, using a 10 year old Sony DVD player that is SACD capable and has analogue outs. The sound was remarkably good with ordinary cd's but with SACD, there was definitely a difference in sound quality, plusher is how I would describe it. The SACD's were Dark side of the moon and Tommy.
I live for CD & SACD so YES is my answer.
Using the same DAC with the DAC running the clock, a US$5 USB flash drive plays DSD files better than a US$20,000 CD transport.
I bought a Marantz SA10 SACD player a few months back and I love it! The sound quality is truly exceptional. SACD really should've become the industry standard. Listening to music is a completely different experience- sound excellence. People who say they can't hear any difference really need to get their hearing checked out as a matter of urgency.
I've never seen a person not hear the difference between CD & SACD!!! It's totally worth it!!
@@sakurachristineito6428 Couldn't agree more!
I agree, I wish they had become the standard as well.
I brough a dcd600ne 5 yrs ago.I though the denon cd player is impressive until I brough a used denon dcd 1600ne .and WOW! it was incredible.! Fantastic ! The sound quality far better than cd music player.
I still have fully functional SCD-1. It's beautiful to look at and sounds amazing even today.
I have the scd1 also. It sounds amazing with my new BHK250. My VIP turntable gets the most use though.
A few week ago I bought a new Marantz SACD KI Signature, so happy with it! Maybe not perfect but works great for me, I feel like 18 again playing my old records like I used to. And my son loves it too! 💿🔊🎶😊👍
Dutch Spoonie i have it to, paired with the PM-KI Ruby its really lovely :) So sad that KI passed away a few weeks ago...
@@lukeshatterhand1969 Hey. How's the dac on the sa ki ruby and which are your final impressions about the amp. Did you compared to other amps of the price category? Does the ruby combo worth buying? Thanks
I started going down this path of true audio nirvana until one day I finally realized that there was no happy ending, and that I was making it that way. Nothing, including our audio reproduction systems will ever be perfect. Unreal expectations create unreachable goals, and no amount of money will ever change that. When I finally admitted that to myself, I stopped chasing my tail (and wasting my money) and concentrated on building a system that would satisfy me most of the time. I am happy with the system I have now, and no longer feel the need to look for the next great thing that everyone says is better.
my happy ending was analog, and not the constantly changing and overly complicated latest digital format.
Thank you for putting into words the mentality that I've adopted. I've bought lots of vintage equipment with no satisfaction being derived from adding more devices. So I am content with the old Bose system my roommate gave me even though everyone hates that brand. My tinnitus will never allow me to enjoy music as I once did, so there's no point in trying to reach perfection when my hearing is far from that.
@@ignazs.5816 Everyone hates Bose (atleast these days) cause its premium on the outside but on the inside where it matters its pure shit. And the big problem is with everything there is no perfection. Every your hardware gets released with companys claiming thats even more realistiv sound blablabla often they just change the case ad a few features that nobody needs and thats it.
Agreed on “not having the need to look for the next best thing’....but, doesn’t hurt to have it if you like 🤪
100% agree with your comment. It’s a terrible place to be - always questioning the sound quality of your music and sound system. Someone in the comments section of a hifi site categorically states their CD player sounds better than the one you own, so it puts a seed of doubt into your mind. It’s the path to perpetual unhappiness! Make peace with what you have (it’s probably better than what 99% of people own) and enjoy the music.
A big thank you for this very informative video. I´ve recently bought myself a High End SACD-player and now I know why the music sounds a lot better on SACD:s than on CD:s. Thanks again!
I got a used OPPO blu-ray player (BRP-105) about a year ago and have been very happy with it. It plays most any kind of CD sized disk (CD, SACD, Blu-ray, etc.). It includes the transport, a DAC and has a volume adjustment so you can connect it directly to your power amp. There is also a newer version - BRP-205. OPPO is no longer making Blu-ray players so you would need to look in the used market. I got mine through Amazon. When I was shopping prices were between 1 and 3K. Not bad for a quality transport and DAC.
And the Oppo players are one of the few that actually play native DSD.
Depending on your budget get a sacd player/dac like Yamaha CD-S2100 or CD-S3000 and you can hook them up straight to your pc. Or get the new Technics SL-G700 sacd/streamer. Yes, definitely worth getting one especially if you still use physical media.
Looking at solutions for playing DSD files vs the familiarity of a SACD player as a music making device makes me lean toward buying a player. Pop in the disk and play. All the computer stuff needed to do the DSD file handling (and even then it might be by way of PCM conversion) takes the fun out of it.
If you’re listening to it on a $200 Bose speaker it doesn’t matter. 😎
i predict people watching *this* channel wouldnt dare do that
What ideally you need is a quality universal player. Unfortunately they are becoming quite rare. I was lucky a few months back at picking up a Primare BD 32 mk2. This is an awesome bit of kit, based on the Oppo 105 and now my DVD, DVDA, SACD, CD, Blu-ray collection are on par, sound quality wise, with my vinyl front-end. And in some instances, even better.
Sure, no doubt about that... I'm absolutely positive about SACD.👍
And the only way to output SACD Stream is in analog format unless your receiving DAC decodes DSD. So even using your SACD transport it’s most useful output is analog and in case of hybrid multichannel SACD discs presents a requirement for multichannel analog outputs ideally XLR too.
As an unrepentant physical media kind of guy and government certified old dude with a fairly large library of chrome donuts and even a significant stable of unicorns (as the audio-company-that-must-not-be-named likes to refer to them) collected over the decades, I would say yes, get a deck. ["Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na . . ."] If you can afford a big bucks CD/SACD deck, good for you. Enjoy! However, there is still a fair amount of kit affordable by mere mortals, such as myself, out there that can take you 95% (or more) of the way to the state of the art. So it's not a Lamborrari, you can still have a lot of fun in a Camstang.
What player are you referring to?
@@rreiss60 I have an Arcam DV135 not quite universal player (stereo only, no Blu-ray) back from when they still manufactured all their kit in England. It originally listed for $1500, but I got it from a brick-and-mortar stereo specialist (support your locals) for a new old stock clearance price of $800 when Arcam made a total revamp of their product line. Even that was a bit of a splurge, but I'd had my eye/ear on this deck for quite a while and it was too good of a deal to pass up.
Paul,
Why is the output quality of the digital source relevant (we look for extra low Jitter in the source, as you explained, right?), when the downstream DAC is anyway re-clocking the digital signal before it gets converted into an analog signal? Thanks for the clarification!
It sells more expensive cables that you don't need.
I like how "single layer" SACD's have a large capacity for music. I have one that has 4 hours/15 minutes playing time. Also "5.1" surround on my BD player is great as well.
Even my used $40 Pioneer SACD player sounds good so hell yes the high end stuff will blow minds...and wallets...
Just have to make sure you get the right setup to go with it.
Do not most DSD DACs employ asynchronous USB? That makes the DAC, not the server, in charge of clocking and to blame for any jitter.
Since some time, all DACs have asynchronous USB. It means that it's the DAC which masters the transfer rate from the computer, and the same way that it explained here, the DAC has a buffer, and uses this buffer with its own clock to build the final digital data at the proper speed. Thus, unless there's a big tech issue, from the hard-drive till the DAC input, we don't really care because it's fast enough to keep the buffer feeding pace.
SACD is twenty year old technology based on DSD64 when the majority of labels recording today use DSD256 (yes it does make sense) with even DSD512 remodulated files available and good quality DAC's able to handle this bit rate. SACD's are played by many folks not realising the DSD is being converted to PCM, defeating the object of the format - it's always been the problem of the Sony copyright to be able to stream the DSD material out to an external DAC. I think universal players are brilliant because of multi-channel DAC capability and of course video. I use an old Cambridge CXU universal blu-ray player but when it comes to SACD the benefit is just the 5.1as it converts DSD to PCM.
How about a novel idea, a device that stores your files on a solid state drive not a spinning hard disc, has a simple GUI for you to find what you want and a direct internal hardwire connection to the DAC with a small amplifier to power headphones or line-level out to a main system...oh wait a minute Cowon, Astell & Kern, Fiio etc already do that and they can in some cases handle DSD512!
I just built a small form factor pc to do media duty with a pcie4.0 nvme drive which is ludicrously quick at getting data. Connects directly to the DAC via ASIO instead of being resampled and remixed by the operating system's sound controls. Its about the size of a game console, and I can even use it like one if I want.
@@ThatGuy2042_ Sounds great :)
What is so novel about replacing a cheap and large HDD with a small and expensive SDD, Seeing how streaming is absolutely not dependent of the speed of either? Basically every large HDD even comes with a 64 or even 128 MB cache, so with the low rate of data to be delivered, an SDD does not make any sense. SDDs also break. I have probably lost as many SDDs as HDDs.
Reading the comments makes me wonder how a normal person who just wants to hear music sound its best might ever be able to make heads or tails of any of this. Maybe we are all a bit crazy, said he, who not only has bought back up sacd players but also backup hdcd players to try to wring the most sound he can for the price point. I got another 30 years of listening and I want it to be good, but I am not in the high end league though I do enjoy the videos. But at a certain point even I am smh.
My ARC Ref CD9 competes with SACD and my well recorded SACD’s sounds great along with standard cd’s. It doesn’t do SACD, but I don’t miss it.
I have a Sony UHD blueray and Yamaha Blueray player both play SACD connected to my Yamaha receiver using HDMI and it uses Direct DSD works great and can get multi ch SACD. Also have a DAC connected to seperate amp powering my own built speakers and it all sounds great. Most of my files are DSD over network to either Dac or one of the bluerays. But I can tell you SACD esp Multi Ch or DSD256 + needs A LOT of bandwidth that a lot of networks cant provide esp wifi. I had to store them on NVME SSD's inside my NAS (Network attached storage) for them to play cleanly with out jitter or breakup etc. Have a Old Philips SACD 6ch sound system with glass speakers that all have ribon tweeters that system got me into SACD adiction.
I brough a used denon sacd,the first thing I notice,is the tone is louder ,sharper,clearer and deeper,great acoustic.yes it worth it.
Paul continues to refer to harddrive “jitter” and as he is not a data storage and network expert that is an understandable misunderstanding. I can only speak for what I use and I’m sure there are other constructions but the infrastructure is mostly the same everywhere.
Data is stored lets say randomly across the surface of a rotating disk hard drive. A file can be in many different places. When the file is requested to be “played” from the drive the on board computer gathers the blocks of data and moves them into one or sometimes two buffer memory blocks. Bigger drives have bigger buffer memories. All of them way way bigger then any SACD file. Remember these things have video files in mind.
At some point the data stored in the buffer memory is sent on its way over the network to lets say a Player that also has a buffer memory. Again probably designed for video and way way bigger then any Audio file of any format. Then the Player does its thing from there. The file is sent in (BIG) packets, not streamed.
In my case my audio and video files are stored on a Network Accessible Storage (NAS) device that contains four Seagate Ironwolf 4TB drives specifically designed for a NAS. They are in what is called a RAID-5 and they all have bodaciously large buffers as does the NAS itself.
The NAS features a DLNA Server and is connected to a 1GB LAN. So pointing to “jitter” in the harddrive(s) in such a system would, well, not be understanding how it works.
My first dvd player after the PS2 was the Sony DVP-NS500V SACD/DVD Player. It has the analog 5.1 output and of course Sony and dts processing. I had the Sony STR-SE581 with 5.1 input and had 5.1 before most people knew what it was. I was 17
I had the Sony DVP-NS500V as well. Excellent sounding player that didn't cost a lot of money (MSRP $250).
I grew up listening to an old AM transistor radio. So anything sounds better to me. But I still like an old radio.
Thanks for the lesson, I was always wondering what the long delay was when trying to play a CD.
I have a Marantz SACD player. I have a Cambridge transport and their dac magic plus player.
Use the transport to play a Cd. Play the same Cd recorded in SACD. Won't play on the transport. Plays on the
SACD player. I can't tell much of a difference in sound quality playing both the Cd's on their players.
IMHO buy a SACD player. Get a lot of bang for the buck from a SACD player.
Ps Audio have you heard of audirvarna playback software?? It absolutely blew my mind with all formats including dsd/dsf... flac.. mp3. ape... etc...
I've seen devices on EBay that will extract via HDMI the DSD from an SACD to out put via coaxial to an external Dac.
Awake2020 got this right. SACD is protected by digital rights management, DRM. You CANNOT get DSD from the digital output of any SACD player. You also cannot rip the DSD from an SACD onto a hard drive. So if you are buying a SACD player, you are also buying the included DAC. I am not up on the current range of SACD players, if you can get one that does the conversion purely in DSD, you might actually have something. You would still be limited to DSD64. My last download from Blue Coast Music was DSD256, 4 times the sample rate of SACD. If you go with a computer, you want a DAC that does not first convert the DSD signal to PCM before decoding.
Some people seem to be really hung up by this digital rights management stuff. I am not one of them. My ears are old and my "get off the merry-go-round", to cite the late, great Sam Tellig (his nom de plume is his birth name Gillette spelled backwards phonetically, clever), level system brings me much joy. Not to say that I don't don't also enjoy reading/YouTubing about it, though. Be happy!
You can send it out over HDMI to an external DAC
@@dempsey3 HDMI to an external receiver, but not an external DAC the likes of PS Audio, Chord Electronics, etc.
Awake2020 I wonder why companies don’t have HDMI on DACs
Maybe a question for Paul
good, very good question. and WHAT is 'high end '?? My $200. Sony Bluray plays SACD and new high tech multi ch. digital audio that is I think called 'better' than SACD..... I don't 'get' the alphabet rating systems, it's in the end digital numbers, one or zero right ? so what is ' high end' IF the player can digest the high rate info ?
Still have my PWT from the early release days, they will have to pry it from my cold dead hands!
Are there multichannel dsd-files available and multichannel dacs available? Or do you need a SACD sending the multichannel data to a AVR via the HDMI which can decode it into the different channels? Are there AVRs that can take a multicahnnel dsd file in on the usb and decode it to the diffrent channels?
Dublin representing 🙏💪
A modern hard drive will always outperform a CD transport for throughput. Never understood all this bias against files on a drive vs a disc.
Paul mentioned this. It is called jitter.
Try it for yourself. Even a fairly cheap CD player sounds better than a regular laptop feeding a dac in my experience
It is not the throughput, an entire average song can be loaded in to memory from HDD in one second. It is the CLOCKING.
@@fretlessfender There's no jitter at this step, during file read, simply because timing doesn't matter. As he explained for their sacd player, in fact in DACs, which are asynchronous, there's a big buffer, to allow data receive from computer at irregular speed, and it's the DAC itself which uses its own clock to rebuild the waveform from the digital data. Regarding that, Paul's explanation is wrong. We just don't care if reading speed of file is irregular, because timing just doesn't matter at that moment.
@@sebsoud I wonder home many of this SACD-is-better-and-the-rest-of-you-are-deaf did proper ABX testing to trully compare the sound and see if they are able to tell the diference. It's all snake oil in the end and nothing sounds better than a regular lossless digital file
How do I know by ear if my system have bad jitter?
EMM Labs makes brilliant SACD players. Amazing reach into the music. You won't hear this kind of SACD/DSD performance on a mid-fi SACD player or DSD dac.
for my dedicated room (have another 2, 1 of which I do use for streaming with a DSjr dac), I keep asking myself the question. shall I just go with a very, very good SACD player -and player only- the likes of Métronome, Esoteric, Technics, Marantz 30, Luxman, Accu etc? As I do not need streaming and don't event want to have a network (wired/wireless) in that rome at all. just a top quality space to play my hundreds of shiny high resolution discs. Or shall I still go the transport-dac route? ahhh options
I think what he was asking is not just the output, but output of what? Does your (and other) SACD players only output PCM over HMDI, DSD over HDMI, or PCM or DSD or analog?
Very clear and helpful explanations.
This is a good question and here is why. People have been buying high end SACD players for decades and even now as we speak. However, the latest debate is that you don't need to buy an expensive transport because the sound quality is really almost only dependent on the DAC. Only until recently I thought there was no way you could decode SACD on an external high end DAC. Well, apparently you can and that is by using the HDMI out of your SACD transport to connect to a HDMI Extractor device that you can get from Amazon and in turn connect it to the I2S input of your high end external DAC. As a matter of fact, you can't even use a high end SACD player even if you wanted to because no high end SACD players have HDMI out. As it turns out, it is only available on the much cheaper universal disc players like the already extinct Oppo player to now the Magnetar universal player plus other universal player brands.
Or you can use the internal DACs of the Oppo or the Magnetar.
@@dannytse8767 True, but why would you? Assuming a high end external DAC will make all the difference in sound quality, plus if you have already been using one for your CDs, of course the natural thing to do is to use your SACDs on it as well. Having said that, many people are still buying Esoteric SACD/CD hybrid players and the likes though, well at least in Asia. I find a lot of audiophiles in Asia are still very much heavy CD/SACD users as opposed to streaming. Just my perception. So, I am not sure whether this HDMI Extractor device has caught on yet? I for one am still using my SACD player and its internal DAC for SACDs. I have to ask around and see what other people think. But, if I had to guess, this probably only applies to the older audiophiles as the younger folks say in their 20's and 30's after the closing down of pretty much all large CD shop chains in the 2010's like the HMVs of the world must have fully migrated over to streaming by now. Personally, I belong to the older group and am still actively buying CDs and SACDs online in sizable quantities every month.
It seems to me that SACD's could've taken off if it wasn't as convoluted as it is right now. SACD's should've replaced cd's by now.
e james other artists would consider it a dream to have the barriers between their fans and their music dissolve.
e james yes. Some artists think that is ideal. Because they’re getting ripped off more, and for longer by the record companies. It’s an unpopular opinion, but you can’t say it doesn’t exist. SOME artists would prefer to forgo the industry and give their fans a way to cherish their music forever.
e james and SOME artists have the attitude that it’s theirs to make, and others’ to enjoy. Yes it’s not very common, but you’re being arrogant.
e james the options are: be ripped off by the record company, or choose to give freely. Otherwise you do the right thing and go the Zappa route.
@e james I fail to see what this has to do with SACD superceding cd's. Are you saying that artists want it to be exclusive? If so, they succeeded to a point it's almost non-existent. Also I believe Sony is the one making it troublesome for other companies to use SACD's due to licensing. So I fail to see how this benefits the music creators.
But what about DVD audio that was the best it has the best sample rate. It has support for high linear PCM and DSD plus Lossless files MLP Meridian Lossless packages, the same people who brought mqa I think they are interchangeable but don't hold me to that an mqa file could be read by the DVD player
John:
I never knew that. What Dvd player are you talking about?
@@charlescalkins4732 you need a special player to get the benefits of a DVD plus A discs,what you can have the sampling rate at 192khz 24 bit they are the best format for mastering off tape you can get. but they're not around much these days they say you can't tell the difference between the master tape and the DVD+A disc should be able to find second-hand like meridian models on the internet and discs are available still and some new releases
I watched this twice , and I don’t know if Paul is recommending one or not , I understand that there are a lot of factors particularly when using a computer, so using a dedicated SACD player certainly takes out a lot of variables to the equation. I’d also add , what is a high end player ? I use an Oppo and it sounds better than my MAC Mini , I know that it’s not that simple but that’s kinda of the point , the sacd player makes it simpler
@@dempsey3 I don't know I didn't watch it I got distracted lol check it again later maybe , but maybe Paul would like to introject if hes about, I wasn't talking about sacd!
@@johnsweda2999 You need a DVD player that handles DVD audio as opposed to just DVD video.
Im confused doesn't paul make transports and SACD players
Makes a difference as long as CD/ROM is SACD, a plain CD sounds no different in these machines. My problem is why these SACD go for so much $$$$$$$$$$$$$$. One blood sucker wanted $500.00 for "Yes" Close to the edge. Granted it was a limited edition...................but, not for me @ 500.
The reason is because the title you seek is considered "out of print". If you would have got into SACD early on, you could've picked up Michael Jackson's "Thriller" on SACD for under $20 at your local Best Buy.
an sacd player can be had for 1100 to 1200 bucks or so from denon as well as arcam.also,pioneer make a universal player for about 900.00 that will also play blu ray audio only and dvd audio discs.
I generally find that PC Audio cards cannot produce good audio as good as a dedicated HiFi. I would go the route of something like the Marantz Network Audio Player that can play wav files ripped from CD & can play high res 24Bit files from a USB stick.
Yamaha cds2100 vs Yamaha cds303 vs pioneer pd-70ae, which is best/worst to buy ? Please let me know
Question. I listen to music at my desktop MAC via iTunes. I don't stream. I invested in $$$ headphones, and all of my music is on WAV files in my iTunes Library, the best my Mac offers. But to import a physical CD or SACD (or play a DVD) on my Mac, I need an outboard disk drive, which is, I think, nothing more than an optical drive in a case. A tray slides out, you pop in the CD (or DVD), it shows up on your screen, you import it into iTunes, press Play. Computer stores offer very few choices. So with this setup, is there any way I can upgrade my listening experience? Does my Mac even recognize SACD? Could I replace this standard $99 all-purpose disc drive with anything better? A sort of transport made for people listening on their computers?
I've never actually seen an SACD, but then I never saw much in the way of minidisc or DCC in stores either.
I'm sure why it failed, was nasty DRM, and a format war.
3 items sank the sacd.
1. most were turned off by the cost of entry.
2. the large number of non-discerning listeners.
3. drm
Very nice explanation!
As a computer is a general purpose device that does other things apart from playing music a significant factor? When I play music on a computer it will decide to start indexing some files or installing an update, then the fan kicks in and this has an impact on what I hear. This is not a problem with my SACD player because it only plays music and nothing else.
Shortly no! Regarding DAC and a sound signature that it bares it really depends on would you use it as a final one or audit it further. So for instance AKM sounds polite and warm (mostly) and if that's it & you intend to use it just like that it's a great choice but if you want to future use preamp stage or tube pre amp or amp ESS which is sharp sounding & bright becomes a much better option. Besides it's much easier to regulate sharpness (roll of filter) & highs that sometimes that's warm (as it easily can destroy lower mids). The actual implementation (how good it is) is more important than what DAC chip is inside as if pore implemented it simple can't sound good. This is where actual measurements jump in. In certain amount that also dictates a price but not distinctively, I know great mid range and even some entry lv products that are so good designed that they run circles around much more pricier products of famous brands. The main part is easy access ability and modularity of equipment & you always buy it as separate components not something highly integrated all in one. So for instance you switch couple of OP amp chips on pre amp/headphone amp on well designed one to find out which one you like the most or couple of lamps & cetera & cetera. I hope this is undesirable.
LOVE this guy.
There is one important point that you overlooked: a considerable number of SACDs are mastered as PCM (generally 24-bit, 96kHz) so if they become available as file downloads, those will be PCM files not DSD.
This fact caught me out only last week.
@@fredjones554 I find that NativeDSD Music is - apart from the Octave Records DSD files - the only source of true DSD file downloads and superb they are. (You usually have a choice of resolution; i.e. DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 etc). I concede that there may be other sources I am not aware of and I would be interested in finding out about others.
Bobby (two thumbs up!)
I have a Sony 4K Blu-ray player that decodes SACD (says so on my TV), but my Marantz NR 1605 says the output is PCM.
So, am I listening to PCM or DSD?
If you're using the HDMI output on the Sony to send the DSD bitstream to the Marantz, then the Marantz is conventing the DSD bitstream to PCM first, before final conversion to analog.
@@dannytse8767 I thought so.
The DSD does sound much better than the regular CD's even with the conversion to PCM.
What you need to do is buy a very inexpensive Sony Blu Ray player that can output DSD via HDMI, and then spend $4000 on a DAC that can decode DSD and has HDMI inputs. The DAC will be useful for other things too.
And who has $4,000 to blow on a dac?
@@centralscrutinizer9591 That's a good point. I know I don't.
There are plenty of HT receivers, some under $500, that has the DAC that decode DSD and can accept the HDMI output of a Sony Blu-ray player.
Hmm, can SACD DSD information be digitally streamed from an SACD player to an external DAC such that the DAC is converting the DSD directly? I thought only the CD portion of a dual-layer SACD can be streamed via digital outputs. In other words, an SACD player can only convert DSD internally and directly output via analog ports on the player itself and not out digital outputs.
Correct
And this is problem how?
Carefully listen to the question again. "I know an SACD player connected to a really good DAC will outperform DSD file playback". His statement implies he is outputting DSD from his SACD player to an external DAC. Does the Sony spec for SACD allow it? Isn't that the reason there are no SACD drives for a computer?
Several manufacturers offer transports that send digital DSD to a separate DAC. The only hitch is that both transport and DAC must be from the same manufacturer. PS Audio used to do that and apparently they will have a new transport that will do it again. Esoteric and dcs also have them, and I'm sure there are others. Personally though, it seems that a single player in one box would have the benefit of shorter signal paths and no interconnect cables, and there's no reason it can't have a fabulous built in DAC.
@@ychilds99 There are various proprietary systems that allow transfer of DSD from a transport to an external DAC, but they are not inter-compatable as far as I know. Also, they tend to be very expensive. Some of the companies that do this are EMM Labs, dCS, MSB, MacIntosh, and (of course) PS Audio.
I have an OPPO BDP -95. I'm concerned that when it eventually dies , there will be few SACD players on the market , so I am looking to buying something comparable now. Any ideas?
@@sactownchad Sold the OPPO and replaced it with a Denon 1600NE
@@kissed61 How do you like the Denon?
@@dannytse8767 I love it
@@kissed61 Yes. The Denon is great.
@@gaylenhalbert4391 I'll say one thing , it is very unforgiving of poorly recorded cds
The problem of PC or any computer based media streaming is because it is computer that generates media stream (both video and audio). Computer is build to get correct and stable out come. But not just in time and surly not first time right. And this is the problem when we use computer or microprocessor to play back digital music. Frankly all part of computer is build with the same base thinking even down to network protocol and routing. They are aim to get correct out come at the end but not in time. Paul, that was why audio grade Network cable, and router sound better. Because good cable pass most data first time right and special router does not route data in random but route it in orderly fashion with precision clock. That is why INNUOS's head designer said at the end everything matters with music server design. Because you nearly need to redo the way whole computer operation in order to get the result you want for music server.
If you buy a good quality SACD why bother wasting more money on seperate DAC as some SACDs allow digital input so you can use it as a transport and/or DAC. You can play SACD/CD and stream hires files to it!
A CD player is way way more prone to data errors due to finger prints and scratches. Data errors will hurt the sound quality. Also a CD player has its own clock and if it outputs data to an external DAC you will have two clocks that will be somewhat out of synch adding potential issues as the DAC needs to try to calibrate itself to what the CD clock does. The CD is pushing data in its own pace. Much better is to use SSD or HD and make the DAC be the only clock master in control ensuring there is no clock syncs issues. This method means data is being pulled from the source using the DAC clock and is possible through USB e.g. via a computer.
Totally agree with you, all decent DAC's reclock the signal anyway. Much more logical starting with files on a SSD rather than reading them off a spinning optical disc!
Anthony Martino How do you know if you have this issue? Data errors on an audio CD are camouflaged by algorithms aiming at you not noticing those errors and the worse errors the more the sound is affected. Bit perfect playback is much more reliable in an SSD or HD.
Also, for durability, an big advantage of files is that they can easily be copied on a backup disk (which, is anyway highly recommended!), so we can ensure that there's really nothing lost during time.
Anthony Martino If you handle your discs well, you hopefully enjoy handling discs. I prefer not bothering with handling discs anymore. I used to be like that. Nowadays I just pick my music from the media player user interface and promptly play it. Check Tidal, for example. The guy who owns the most CDs on the planet is a friend of me. His name is Li Jihui and he is Chinese. His collection is insane covering rooms of walls full of CDs and LPs plus a warehouse of boxes also. I dare not ask him the time spent in finding a particular song. My perhaps equally large collection can fit in my hand and any song is found in less than a second. He also has the world’s largest audiophile equipment collection and several large acoustically optimized listening rooms. It’s an audiophile paradise. He makes his money owning China’s largest knife company.
sebsoud Another reason is space. If you want to have a large collection of music on CD or vinyl, it takes a lot of space and cost a lot of money. The future of music storage is solid state either in the cloud (like Tidal) or in your home on some NAS drive or other drive.
Stupid question, but.... should it not the the DAC job to buffer & time the data and not the transport?
If the digital interconnect included flow control you could do that, but alas it does not. If it's left to the DAC, what happens if your DAC is expecting data faster than the transport supplies it and you run out of buffered data? Conversely, if your transport is supplying data faster than it's being used by the DAC, then how many bytes of extra buffer should the DAC provide to accommodate the mismatch and what happens if that buffer is exceeded? Because there is no way for the DAC to control the flow, the clock needs to be established at the start of the chain and then followed by the destination. It would be simpler if computer or RADAR nerds engineered these transports... in that world I would assume the digital components would operate in a more "packet" oriented context and there would be a seperate cable to distribute a single master clock to all components. Most audiophiles would likely elect to use an atomic clock for their master.
The transport is controlling and providing the master clock so while it might not make sense, that's the way it's been setup for as long as there have been DACs, transports and CD players.
@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio Thank you for the reply! I sometime have problems with, well we have always done it that way. LOL
Wadia's clocks are located at the DAC.
I don't "stream" my music. I guess I'm still old school. (My 25 year old son does, though). Anyway, I'd like to get a new SACD transport, but I don't want to spend mega $$$ on one. Any thoughts would be appreciated. THANKS!
Hello Steve, I feel the same way, I've had my eye on a Sony ubp x800mk2, it is a digital transport that plays sacd, 4k blueray, dvd audio, and most other things for under $300.00. Hope that helps.
right. I have the $ 200. Sony 700 that plays SACD and the new 'high tech' multi ch. movie soundtracks, said to be better than SACD I think. I don't get the alphabet of digital ratings, but if the digital flow of info is twice or 3 times standard CD ( SACD ) that's probably pretty darn good. as is standard CD. it's in the recordings and quality of mastering.
The Dec.2019 and Feb. 2020 issues of The Absolute Sound have reviews of CD/SACD players from Arcam, Marantz, Technics, and Yamaha in the $1200 - $4000 range. Not chump change, but not bat-sierra (keep it family friendly) crazy, either. Not a substitute for personal auditions, of course, but presumably honest opinions from a source with a long established track record.
And in the words of Jeremy Clarkson (or was it James May) in Top Gear, "Old school and the better for it."
=//=OIdDudesStillRock
I bought a refurbed Sony ubp-x800 for $99 and it does a great job on sacd. I also have an oppo 103 and can’t tell the difference.
I've had a Sony CE595 since new. You can find one in good shape you are golden. They did have some alignment issues but there is a fix for that. Mine never had the issue. Maybe because it's sat on the same shelf since it came out of the box. It even plays good quality normal CD's better then most also.
I would think invest in a good, not expensive sacd player ( that has a good transport and hook it up with an external dac eg: RME adi2 fs, I would think that it would elivate it big time. Another can be seen the Sony xa5400es SACD player moded with the VSE internal Tera Lite clock or the Uber outboard clock, expensive but will blow $5000 cd players away...just saying!
No!, When in production makers were saying it's the ultimate, after it flopped they said there was hardly any difference, it's all about making money.
so, you havent done an A/B, then.
Is he talking mechanical hard drive or flash? My MBPro is flash. Way better than the old mechanical drives. IMO.
Please keep in mind that flash storage is *temporary.* As flash memory cells scale, the atoms they're made from do not and the result is the stored charge in each cell has been getting smaller and smaller as density increases. Modern SSDs only keep your data in tact by virtue of error detection and correction logic being very good and as they're used, they constantly provide invisible "housekeeping" in the background that periodically rewrites saved data to new locations on the chip to refresh it and even out the number of writes to any given data block. The flash used in server cache drives can start to forget its contents in as little a 3 months without power applied to run that background housekeeping. Consumer units are much better but I would not count on any flash drive for archival storage because it absolutely will forget. Make a copy of your valued data on spinning disks and then copy those to SSDs for the benefits, but don't even think your data is safe on a SSD. (BTW: I used to work in one of the largest SSD factories in the US which got moved to Mexico a couple years ago)
Just curious paul, do you think all cd players sound the same?
Yes CD player read are the same. But the build in DAC are maded difference give you quality sound differently.
No. I've had to reject cd players in the past because their sound didn't balance with my system.
No, they don't all sound the same. I have several, and I have owned many more. They don't sound the same.
@@timyen75 The DAC is not the only factor. The LASER and the quality of the motor and supporting electronics (not to mention the analogue output stage) all come into play.
They definitely don’t all sound the same ,
anyone known a decent multi disc CD player worth buying (100+) in this day and age?
No sir I don't. I love physical disc media and lately seem to be good at wearing out mega CD changers. I keep having to buy used ones and crossing my fingers. Just bought another changer (Pioneer PD-F27 this time) and also bought a Marantz SA8004 SACD player (single disc obviously). The SA8004 will satisfy my SACD needs for now and also has digital inputs so I can use it as a DAC. I need the DAC feature so if and when this new mega changer fails I will have files of all my discs on my laptop ready to play through the SA8004 on my home system. That will give me time to sort yet another mega changer. My first mega changer lasted me 22 years but I'm now buying used.
@@07zx14White I have a 100 disc pioneer and a 6 disc multi player. everything seems to work except the laser doesn't want to read the discs. any ideas how what's the problem?
where do get your 2nd equipment? hard to come buy here in oz :(
@@realguyozWhat is the model # of the faulty CD player? I constantly check second hand stores, flea markets, vendor malls, goodwill, and ebay. My last two purchases were Ebay though. Ebay is always a gamble but if you put in the study time you can find good deals from honest sellers. Also if you search the model # of your disc player sometimes used working parts will show up.
perect wave or bhk ????????????????????????
I use a computer outputting DSF files and it still blows my head off every time
What program do you use and output chip?
"How do get them off?" What a question 😉
I am not sure the server is relevant at all. Isn't it that basically every streamer / DAC re-clocks the data as they receive it? I like to think even my rather old low end Marantz streamer does that. I don't believe this is dependent on the server at all because the server cannot account for network performance.
What I hope to accomplish...
I slip the Dark Side of the Moon disc into my 'puter I hope my 65 yr old ears will hear 'close' to
what my 20 yr old ears heard. As far as I'm concerned, mission accomplished!
😅if you take from a disc how can it sound beter through a computer. Sounds fishy to me.i buy my sacds from japan 🎉😊
No, not enough material on the format.
Of course it is. They sell one 🤣
No its not..Buy old DVD players.The have very good lasers inside wich work on a much higher frequency than CD players. you wil hear more low frequencies.
You do know what’s a SACD, right?
No ... my hearing above 10Khz requires 50db minimum signal (and gets worse at higher frequencies) because I am 50years old. It is also proven that at lower frequencies the accuracy matters less. SACD is pointless for people above 40!
@@djknox2 That's a valid argument to make, if the better sound quality is due to the equipment or the better mastering? But I would argue it does not really matter. If it's the mastering effect, then so be it, you are still getting a better reproduction, better fidelity via SACD in most cases, and you need the SACD player to get that better quality, due to greater bandwidth that they are able to reproduce in. This is not any different than individuals who with vinyl look for earlier/ different pressings of albums because they do sound better? And there are many grades of styli that reproduce an album and accentuate the album differently. I really don't think that SACDs are pointless for people over 40. That's a very unscientific generalization. You would have to assume that everyone over 50 can't hear above a certain frequency. I myself am 54 , and I watched a RUclips video where the individual played a cd and a SACD of dire straits and I could definitely hear the difference between the two and it was not subtle either. That's not to say you're going to get that with each SACD but at least in this instance there was a big difference. I am a researcher and believe at every age nuances in the ability of individuals to use their senses to perceive more or less occurs across all ages. I'm not saying that the placebo effect is not real, but that's not to say that we should discount an individuals ability to hear some thing that another individual cannot and call it snake oil because of it.
What about SACD’s multilayered audio. Only a compatible player capable of reading this information can access the detailed separation. So yes they are worth buying, they sound better.
probably not worth it since there are very few SACDs available. Just go with a descent 4K player IMO and feed it into a nice DAC.